


Inject A Little Phantom Into The Fenton

by GothMoth



Series: May's Phantastical Callings [15]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Accident, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Re-write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-05-28 15:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothMoth/pseuds/GothMoth
Summary: Beginning not as it once was, but is that for the best?





	1. A Ghost! But Not?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny’s “little” accident is much to everyone’s horror, especially his parents.

Danny knows he really shouldn’t be down here but how couldn’t he? Sure all his parents' ghost talk was weird and utterly unbelievable, but a whole nother world? In the wall? 

Staring at the finished, but nonfunctional, portal; he feels kind of bad for his parents. They poured their hearts and souls into this and nothing, nada, zip, zilch. They’ve been pretty bummed ever since and Jazz’s barely concealed gloating wasn’t exactly helping. Muttering to himself, “she values being right way too much”. 

He kind of wants to snoop around the portal, poke at it maybe. Every Fenton was some kind of scientist, including him. Stars and space were his thing, and really, isn’t another dimension like a whole nother planet? Maybe it could quite literally be another planet just somehow connected to this one? 

Tilting his head towards the, honestly over-sized, jumpsuit closet, “this family may be off the walls general safety wise but I’m not about to disregard the one safety measure they actually care about”. Walking over and sticking his head in, and quickly finding his own suit. Which he knows his parents are proud of, even if he’s never really worn it. Unlike Jazz, he didn’t intentionally destroy his personalised one. Blues and oranges just wouldn’t look good on him, and he actually puts others first. Jazz is more of a “do whatever she thinks is right, others wants be damned”, kind of person. He almost wishes she wasn’t right so freaking often though, as he pulls on the suit. Looking himself over in the mirror, instantly groaning, “really dad? That’s honestly kind of creepy”, peeling off his dad’s face as he talks. He doesn’t even really like having famous people’s faces plastered on his body, his own family members face was just plain wrong. Not to mention how dorky it looked. 

Stepping back out and a bit eagerly tapping on the portal, the suit felt weird but right. Chuckling a little, “meant for me or whatever bullshit. Surprised I can actually feel textures and whatnot through the gloves though”. Poking his head inside and looking around, smirking slightly, “this is lame but I so have to do this”. Danny bounds in like he’s a weightless spaceman, taking the first steps on some new planet. Laughing a little to himself and blushing slightly, when absolutely nothing happens. Expected, but he’s kind of glad no ones around to see his antics. Running his left hand through his hair before going to lean it on the wall. Tilting his head slightly as a green lightning bolt seems to spark at the very back, leaning forwards slightly, “what the-”. Cutting himself off and not even getting the chance to do anything more than go wide-eyed, as green energy zaps and spirals forwards, slamming into him. 

Both Maddie and Jack jump, with Jack nearly slamming his head into the ceiling, as they both hear a loud scream. The groceries Maddie’s carrying clattering to the floor, while Jack knocks the living room table over. Both of them only quickly glance at each other before running to the lab door, knowing damn well this was their son’s clearly prolonged scream; and drawn out screams are bad screams. 

Maddie’s the first to make it down, whipping her head around, shouting, “DANNY!”, before noticing and snapping her head towards the portal. Going wide-eyed instantly, realising that Danny was nowhere in sight. And the only out of place thing was the toxic green swirling in the portal. Dashing over to it just in time to catch, a barely conscious and clearly glowing, white-haired teenage boy. Jack’s by them in only a second or two as the boy groans and looks to be going to put his hand on Maddie’s arm, likely to stand himself up; but promptly phases straight through her, collapsing to the ground. Jack gapes as Maddie spins around, startled, while the boy rolls over and sits up. Rubbing at his eyes and groaning, “what the?”. Now both of them are gaping but for a whole different reason, instantly recognising the unusual hairstyle and angular facial structure. 

All Danny can remember is sharp hellish pain. Like fire and lightning just joined in unholy matrimony inside his flesh and bones. Stumbling backwards he has no clue who the hell caught him or why they dropped him or what the hell that weird tingling was. But at least he’s not hurting anymore, rolling over and rubbing at his eyes because man they felt weird, like poprock candy was fizzing and popping about inside them, “what the?”. 

Swinging his hands out and snapping his eyes open as something is very much not right, as he finds himself flipping in mid air randomly. Yelping, “HOLY SHIT!”. Realising he's freaking floating and are his hands glowing? Getting that tingling feeling again but just in his foot this time, snapping his head down, which somehow rights him; as he watches his mom try to grab onto him not once but twice, phasing straight through his ankle and foot each time. Yanking his foot away and not even bothering to try to cover up his swearing, because if anytime called for swearing this was it, “WHAT THE FUCK!”. 

His parents are clearly as startled and freaked out as he is, with his dad opening and closing his mouth like a fish. While his mom actually grabs at his shoulders this time, not going through him and successfully yanking him back to the ground. Her voice comes out like a mixture of startled and worried, “DANNY?!?”, the fact that she says his name more like a question is definitely concerning. Practically whispering at her because he’s honestly kind of scared now, “mom, what-what’s going on?”. Blinking a bunch because again with the weird eye feeling and his parents just gaping at him is not make anything better, “what the h-”, Danny he’s cut off by his legs getting tingly and feeling like he’s sinking. Snapping his head down and yelping, before his dad flat out grabs him by the torso and yanks him up. 

Danny puts his hands on his dad’s wrists and is honestly just getting more freaked out by his dad’s confused and verging on scared face, “Danny-boy? Son?”. Danny squints at him, stuttering, “w-why, are you, s-saying that like, like it’s a...question?”. 

Jack and Maddie glance from each other to Danny a couple of times before Jack slowly puts him down. Both thankful he doesn’t start phasing through the ground again. 

Maddie slowly reaches her fingers out and pokes at her son’s white and glowing hair tentatively, pulling away for only a second before gently brushing her hand through his hair. “M-mom? Why are you, are you doing that?”, both of them can hear the pleading and fear in his echoey voice. So like any good mother, Maddie shakes herself off and pushes down her own freaked out state to comfort her child, quickly yanking him into a hug. Stifling a gasp at the cold temperature but becoming teary-eyed as it dawns on her, cold, floating, intangibility, glowing, his eyes were green for peats sake! 

Jack had come to that conclusion almost instantly but hadn’t exactly processed it yet, it doesn’t set in really till he goes to squeeze his son’s shoulder comfortingly and to confirm what he’s seeing is real, only for his hand and Maddie to go straight through him. 

Jack has to catch Maddie to keep her from falling over as Danny spins around to look at them, clearly freaked out, “did you? Did you just go through me!?”. Maddie wipes at her eyes quickly so Danny won’t see she’s upset, as they both watch him snap his head down to look at himself and pat at his chest. Both them easily hear him mutter, “wasn’t this white? Why am I glowing?What the hell?”. 

Maddie starts talking and reaches out for him as he snaps his head around to the back mirror, “sweetie, I-I don’t think you should-”. Her hand goes through him again and she gets cut off as Danny puts his hands on either side of the mirror before almost aggressively rummaging his hand through his hair, “what happened to my hair!”. Spinning back around to them and pointing at the mirror, “what?!”.

At first Jack just takes a slow step towards him but as Danny starts floating, thus flailing and freaking out, again, Jack runs over and grabs his hand to keep him from floating around. But for whatever reason, Danny’s gravity-defying is too strong for him to pull his son down this time. 

Danny grabs onto his dad’s hand with both of his own, which should have black gloves not white and he would really like some answers right about now. Whispering at his dad, “what’s happening, to me?”. Danny watches as his dad opens and closes his mouth a couple of times before looking back to his mom. Which is also concerning, why is everything concerning and freaky? And why can’t he stop floating?! He always wanted to feel the weightlessness of space but not like this! His dad’s wince as his mom staggers over and Jack’s voice pulls Danny out of his head, “son, little, tight”. Realising he’s kind of clinging on with a death grip, loosening his hands as he weakly mutters, “s-sorry”. Flicking his eyes over to his mom as she grabs at his arm, moving one of his hands over to hold her hand. Which she squeezes as she talks, “sweetie, I, you-”, clearing her throat a little, “I think you’re, you’re a...ghost”. Danny slowly looks between them incredulously, how could he possibly be a ghost? That doesn’t even make any kind of sense? Aren’t ghosts dead? It’s not like he- his eyes go wide as he can tell they’re serious and as a realisation dawns on him. The portal! Slowly dragging his eyes over to look at it, blinking a bit as it’s clearly activated. It turned on or opened up or whatever, with him...inside. Barely whispering, “oh god”. Slowly turning his head back down towards his parents, voice coming out a bit squeaky, “I died?”. Both of them squeeze on his hands harder, which is actually not comforting right now, he was freaking dead! His dad nods a little, “I think so, son”. Holy shit, he was dead, he died, he was...he was a ghost! A freaking ghost! 

At that thought, he can’t help but notice his parents jumpsuits and all the stuff in the lab, stuff for ghost hunting. Ghosts, ghosts like...him? But they wouldn’t, would they? But what if they could fix him maybe? How do you fix death? Blinking a bunch, “oh my god, I’m dead”. Both his parents cringe a little, but he can tell his mom’s trying to smile reassuringly, her watering eyes exactly don’t help though, “I think, I think going with...ghost, is better. Less, less final”.

Danny doesn’t really get a chance to respond as a weird cold feeling fills his chest and seems to expand out of him. Yelping as he promptly falls on his ass hard and holy shit! Pain! Hissing as he slams and grips his hand onto his arm, curling in on himself, seconds before passing out. 

Maddie moves just fast enough to catch Danny before his head hits the floor. Pushing his head back into her left hand as she pulls his torso onto her lap, while pushing his black hair out of his face with her right hand. 

Jack’s still holding his son’s hand when both of them see his eyes are closed and he’s not responding. Maddie starts shaking as both of them feverishly check him for a pulse. Jack sits down and leans his forehead against Maddie’s shoulder after finally finding and feeling his son’s pulse. He wheezes a bit in strained and nerve-wracked laughter, but Maddie’s slightly horrified sounding voice stops his wheezing in its tracks, “Jack. It’s slow. It’s too slow”. Jack actually pays attention to his son’s pulse under his thumb again, but it’s not the pulse that catches his attention this time, but how wrong his son’s skin feels and the realisation that he should be touching jumpsuit not skin. Snapping his head over and nearly crying out, seeing the burnt black skin with angry red branching lines. Cradling his sons’ arm gingerly now, as Maddie looks over and gasps seeing what startled her husband. “Jack, Jack! Go get the medical kit!”, Maddie’s glad Jack can move fast when he needs to and she’s so confused as to how Danny’s pulse doesn’t seem to be getting weaker. Someone’s pulse can’t maintain this slow rate, and he was just a ghost?! She’s sure of it, so how? How does he even have a pulse at all?. 

Maddie cradles him and actually hopes he doesn’t wake up yet, as Jack snips off what’s left of the sleeve and cuts the suit down the side, stopping above his waist. Both of them inhale sharply at seeing the red branching burns running across his chest, stopping just under his ribs and before his right shoulder. Jack tries for some positivity, “at least the black burns, burns stop before the shoulder”. Maddie just nods a bit numb, while Jack treats the burns. 

They’re both torn between being elated and worried as Danny eventually comes to, hissing and scrunching up his eyes from the pain. 

Danny just barely manages to restrain himself from screaming, painfully clenching his teeth together as he hisses and whines a little through his teeth. Yanking his arm and chest away from whatever is touching it, only for it to hurt more. Barely hearing his mom over the pain, “Danny sweetie, you need to stay still. Jack, he’s trying to patch you up, ok sweetie? You just, you just need to stay still”. He knows she’s right, nodding as he gulps and tears up. Feeling her pat comfortingly on his head, as he pushes his forehead into her stomach to try and block everything out some. 

He’s just assuming his dad’s doing bandaging based off the pressure on his arm and it’s a struggle to keep from clenching his hand. If he wasn’t in so much pain he’d probably be impressed at his dad being so gentle. 

Panting a bit as they move him to lean against a wall, tilting his head backward into it and groaning, he’d really like to go back to sleep right about now. Squinting his eyes open as his mom talks, “I’m going to go get some pain medication, ok? Your dad’s right here, ok?”. Danny doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth without screaming, so he squeezes his eyes back shut and nods gingerly. 

Feeling his dad pat and grab his boot as he talks, “Danny-boy, do you think you could point out what hurt you?”. Danny’s not sure why he says hurt instead of killed because isn’t killed the right word? And why wasn’t he hurting before? Groaning a bit again because this all makes no sense, but he cracks open his eyes again and nods at his dad. Lifting up the arm that doesn’t feel like it’s being stabbed and cooked alive, and pointing it at the portal. 

His dad doesn’t even look all that shocked, horrified yeah but not shocked. Nodding faintly back at him, “you were, inside it. Mads caught you when you fell out. Were you, were you inside it when it turned on?”. Danny nods and weakly draws a swirl in the air. All he really remembers is feeling something on his left push in and make a clicking sound when he leaned on the wall and then there was the sparking and swirling green. Then it was everywhere suddenly and pain, lots and lots of pain.

Danny feels almost amused at the dirty look his dad gives the portal and it’s probably weird that Danny kind of still likes the thing. Turning his head to watch the green swirling, it’s kind of pretty really and focusing on the humming sound it makes seems to make him feel a bit better. 

Turning his head to the stairs as he hears his mom coming back down, instantly mentally pleading for her to hurry up and make the pain go away. He doesn’t even complain when she sticks the pills in his mouth herself and holds the glass to his mouth for him to drink. Which he drinks a bit greedily as he realises just how dry his throat is, with a vague memory of screams tearing up his throat, bubbling to the surface in the process. 

Coughing a little, as he finishes the glass off and notices his hand is back in a black glove as he wipes his mouth. Squinting at it before tilting his head down and cringing at the bandaging covering his chest. Then cringing from the pain of bending his torso even slightly. Leaning back against the wall with a sharp hiss. Maddie pats at his uninjured hand, “you’re not a ghost sweetie, somehow. You changed back and you, you have a pulse. It’s slow but it’s there”. Cracking open his eyes again and looking to both of them, Jack nods reassuringly, “you’re not dead, son”. Danny wants to hear his heartbeat or whatever himself, no way he’s going to try checking his pulse. Lifting his hand up, he points at his chest and draws a little heart in the air. “We haven’t checked that yet sweetie, do you want us to now?”.

At Danny’s nod Maddie gets up and grabs the stethoscope, gingerly placing it over the bandaging. Wincing as Danny winces from the light contact, but knowing they all really needed to confirm his heart was in fact, beating. She can see the pleading in his eyes as she listens, smiling a little as she can clearly hear the beating but, like his pulse, it’s way too slow and there’s something else. Sounding kind of like a deep hum in tune with drumming but inside of a cave. She really has no clue what could be making that sound. It’s too consistent to be his heart and there’s no whooshing for it to be from his lungs. Blinking as she realises that her taking so long is probably worrying her son. Cleaning the ear pieces off before leaning over and putting them in Danny’s ears, “it’s still there, don’t worry”. She doesn’t blame him for tearing up a little at hearing it though, even if the tearing is probably partly from pain. His smile looks a bit strained as he nods a little. 

Jack takes that as his turn to listen, wiping it off and listening for himself. Also picking up on the strange reverberating hum, deciding to not mention it as he’s pretty sure his son wouldn’t have realised that’s not normal. Because right now, his son getting better was more important than what’s normal. Besides, normal is an oxymoron for a Fenton. Smiling and nodding at his son quickly before realising that he’s either asleep or passed out, again. 

Maddie’s holding up Danny’s head as she turns to him, “I think we should get him into bed now. Think you’re up for carrying him?”. Jack nods and gingerly picks him up, while Maddie positions his head so it doesn’t roll backwards. 

As Maddie’s tucking him in bed, Jack looks at her worried, “what do you think that humming was? I’ve never heard anything quite like it Mads. And the ghost but then not a ghost thing? What happened to him Mads?”. Jack knows she’s the smarter of the two and better at thinking on the fly. 

But Maddie wishes she knew, shaking her head, “I don’t know Jack. But I think it’s best we don’t mention it to him, at least not till his burns are healed or something”. Jack chuckles hollowly, “this, this is not how I wanted to see my first ghost”. Maddie nods as she slumps down onto the floor, “me neither, me neither”. 


	2. Questions Of An In-Between Existence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What’s a bunch of Fenton’s to do when a mystery presents itself? Science!

Danny wakes up with a jerk and winces in pain. But blinking as it hurts way less than he knows it should. Looking down at his left arm and hand, experimentally bending it slightly. It hurts a little yeah but the bandaging is almost more uncomfortable. Twisting his hand back and forth only confirms that. Muttering, “ok? I’m not complaining but I’m pretty sure this isn’t normal”. Sticking his finger under the bandaging on his chest and gaping at the white branch-like scarring. Breathing out, “oh yeah, not normal. Not normal at all”. He may not have a bunch of medical knowledge but even he knows scars don’t form overnight. Heck, he’s sure his chest was burned up yesterday and now it didn’t even hurt. His hand and forearm did, but that’s it. 

Once again he’s left wondering just what the hell happened to him. Being a freaking ghost wasn’t some fever dream or pain induced hallucination, was it? Shaking his head as he swings his legs over the bed and heads downstairs, both thirsty and hungry. 

Both the Fenton parents go slack-jawed as they watch their son bounce energetically down the last few steps and into the kitchen. He looks a bit awkward as he looks up and sees them gaping at him, “er, kind of hungry”. Maddie just nods as she points for him to sit down while she gets food for him, completely baffled because he should still be in tons of pain. He really shouldn’t even want to sit up, none the less actually get out of bed. 

Jack closes his mouth and clears his throat before speaking, “you’re feeling better I’m assuming, son?”. Danny nods, responding while rubbing his neck awkwardly, “um, yeah but not, like, completely. Which while it is nice, it’s also freaky”. Jack can’t help but agree, no one heals that fast. Maddie nods at Danny as she gives him his cereal, “while I agree I’m glad you feel better, it is definitely odd sweetie”. Jack awkwardly eats a few bites of his pancakes before pointing his fork at Danny’s chest, “think you’re up for us checking you out again?”. Even though Danny nods, both of them can read the nervousness and reluctance on his face and in his eyes. 

Danny’s not too sure about this, what if he really was a ghost but could like mimic a heartbeat and pulse? Or maybe ghosts still had those somehow but just slower? If that was the case then what? His parents were freaking ghost hunters, sure he’d like to think they wouldn’t do anything to him but still. Even if they didn’t hunt him or whatever, what if they started to view him as one of their projects or an experiment? That, that would almost be worse. But he doesn’t really see any way out of this, they would have insisted on changing the bandaging eventually anyway. And considering it had only been one night and his gut told him that everything not hurting was totally healed, no way they wouldn’t notice the freaky healing. 

So he takes his time with his cereal and hopes they just think it’s because he’s not at a hundred percent. 

Pushing his cereal bowl away before hopping onto the stool next to the sink. Lifting up his arms gently so his dad can cut away the bandaging on his chest, everyone hears his dad gasp a little, “oh wow, it’s, you’re, wow”. Danny can’t help but cringe a little both from his dad’s words and from the sight of the scarring and faint bruising on his chest. Danny pretty darn sure that scars just don’t heal or go away, even if his healing is completely jacked up. 

He can feel his dads eyes on him so he tilts his head back up to meet his gaze, “wow, son. You weren’t kidding. I am glad you’re okay though”. Danny smiles awkwardly and holds out his arm, looking back at his chest while his dad cuts the rest of the bandaging off, only wincing after he cuts past the elbow. Jerking a little and clenching his jaw as his dad peels of the bandaging. 

Jack winces apologetically, “sorry”. Danny just nods before examining his arm. Maddie shakes her head as her son slowly opens and closes his fist, it’s clear his arm’s still pretty bad but nothing like the charred black mess it had been only hours ago. “Well, we’re definitely re-bandaging that, but otherwise you’re ok. It ok if I check your pulse though?”, Danny nods but again he looks uncomfortable and like he doesn’t really want to. Jack and Maddie share a look of concern, Maddie’s officially a bit worried that he might be a bit traumatised and being reminded what happened might not be the best thing for him. Jack shuffles slightly and is obviously making a point to speak gentility, “son, if you’re not ok with this that’s fine. You’re walking, talking and healing; that’s enough for us”. Maddie nods and ruffles Danny’s hair a little, which apparently makes him blush, “sorry? Just kind of freaked out I guess”. Though both of them can tell by how he looks around awkwardly, that there’s more he wants to say but that he’s also looking for an excuse to not say it. So Jack pats him on the leg supportively, while Maddie gingerly cleans Danny’s arm off. Danny winces a little but just seems to start rambling, which tells them he’s been thinking about this for a while now, “like this, this is really weird and with the whole dead or ghost or whatever thing earlier. What if I’m still like that but like faking stuff somehow or like slowly becoming like that again or like possessing my own corpse or something? And you’re hunters, ghost hunters. So just what?”. Maddie can tell he cut himself off, and considering the apologetic look, she’s sure he was about to ask if they were going to, going to hunt him. That thought makes Maddie’s stomach clench and she’s a bit worried he might have had a nightmare about that. Jack responds near instantly before Maddie even gets the chance to, “then we’ll deal with it like a family. A Fenton family but still family. We’ll figure this out, together”. Maddie nods and smiles at Danny, picking up that he didn’t hear quite what he wanted to, “and we’d never hunt you sweetie. God, we never could”. Maddie can tell by Jack looking a little startled that he didn’t even think of that, “what?! Never! Danny-boy you’re safe here, no matter what. Human or ghost. You being dead was what scared us. I mean I thought-”, Jack cuts himself off to clear his throat, “-I thought our invention killed you. Hell, I’m not happy you got hurt at all!”. Both them can tell Danny’s smile is more genuine this time but Maddie feels the need to reinforce that they’re parents first, “you're more important than any of our work, hunting or research. Always”. 

Danny smiles a bit more at that because yeah it could be easy to forget that, with how excitable his parents could be about their work, “thanks, I needed that”. Looking between them he can tell they both mean it and he likes that his dad apparently never even thought about even considering hunting him. 

Pulling his hand and arm up and twisting it a little, the bandaging was still uncomfortable but better, “I’m guessing I’m still not going to school though”. He really hopes he doesn’t have to because dealing with classes is not something he feels like having to do. Both of them shake their heads rapidly, “of course not sweetie! We already notified the school you’d be out for at least a week”. He is damn pleased to hear that, though something tells him, he’ll be healed long before then. Rubbing his neck a bit awkwardly, “what’d you say happen to me?”. He’s seriously hoping it wasn’t remotely close to the truth, for oh so many reasons. His moms' smile is soft, which pretty well assures him that she or they didn’t give the school even close to the full story, “just that there was an accident and that you got electrocuted. That’s it”. Danny nods rather relieved, scrunching his eyebrows up at the feeling of all of his hair standing on end, but the feeling isn’t quite right. He doesn’t get a chance to check as his dad startles the crap out of him by jumping off his stool, for whatever reason that chases the feeling away. His dad’s slack-jawed again and he really has no damn clue why. “Uh, dad?”, his dad closes his mouth and shakes his head, before looking at his mom, clearly worried. Which only makes Danny worried, “okay? What’s going on here?”, Danny’s not really a fan of how confusing crap keeps happening. 

Now both Maddie and Jack are certain that the ghost thing has clearly not gone away. Both officially worried that their son might have been on to something with his earlier worries about still being a ghost. Maddie not sure if it’s bad or good that Danny, clearly, has no clue what he just did, so she speaks softly aiming to not freak him out, “sweetie, you were just invisible”. She instantly feels bad as she watches him go wide-eyed, “what!?”. Both of them nod at him, while he looks between them for a moment before tilting his head back and groaning, “well that’s just great”. Bending his head back down and running a hand through his hair, before look back up to them. Maddie can clearly see the pleading in his eyes, “so what the hell am I then?”. Maddie hates that she really doesn’t have an answer for him, before it was easy to go with ghost but there’s no way he could be a ghost now, right? “I wish we knew but regardless, you’re family”.

Jack doesn’t really want to admit that he’s a bit excited to figure out this mystery, this could be some new discovery and the powers ghosts had were pretty cool; if a bit startling. But making sure his son’s ok, and not just physically, was more important. And it was pretty clear that, at least right now, his son was not finding the powers cool. His mental state was also, clearly, not ok. Jack pats him on the shoulder and smiles, “whatever this is we’ll figure it out. If you’re ok with that, of course. And I can’t say I’ve got any more ideas that what you already mentioned”. Chuckling a bit to try and make this all more light-hearted, “but I’m pretty sure we can rule out you possessing yourself or faking stuff. Ghosts can’t mimic the living on such a deep level”. Maddie nods, it would be kind of terrifying if they could actually, but no, a ghost having an audible and feelable heartbeat and pulse shouldn’t be possible, “I’d say we’re both positive you’re still alive sweetie”. 

Jack taps his chin, “maybe the portal just infused you with ghost powers?”. Danny doesn’t really look like he believes that, “and what? Decided to make me a ghost or whatever for a few minutes, for kicks?”. Jack shrugs as he really has no clue on that one, but Maddie clearly has an idea, “near-death experience maybe? The portal just made it visible?”. 

Danny tilts his head, because yeah that could make sense, “I mean, maybe? I don’t know. But yeah, I definitely want my heart and stuff checked now”. Once again hoping to everything that he actually has both. His parents look a bit apologetic and he’s not sure if that’s cause they feel bad for him, cause they feel bad that he’s freaked out, or that they feel bad about examining him. All three are pretty darn reasonable though. 

Watching his mom listen to his heartbeat through his, now bare, chest and not seeing concern is extremely reassuring. She passes it off to his dad while she checks his pulse, “well it’s the same as last night. Slow but there”. 

“How much slower are we talking?”

“Too slow, about half what it should be”, Danny frowns, not exactly liking the sounds of that. He’s pretty well sure that shouldn’t be survivable, none the less maintainable, “so...I’m not dead, but I should be? That’s ridiculous”. Both of them nod, clearly agreeing with him. But obviously there’s something else as they share one of their knowing looks, his mom pats lightly at his hand, which is not currently comforting, “and there’s something else, we don’t really know what but we noticed it last night too; we just didn’t want to freak you out more”, his mom shuffles a bit before continuing, which screams stalling and that’s worrying, what other weird thing is going on with him now? 

“There’s also a humming sort of sound, it was possible the bandaging could have been causing it or maybe lingering electricity yesterday. But now that’s pretty unlikely, that sounds the same too”. Glancing down at his chest incredulously and trying to think if it felt any different. Thinking about it, yeah he could feel like an energy, kind of like when he feels giddy or like an adrenaline rush but localised and compacted inside his chest. There was a faint vibrating too, come to think of it, and a fullness. He had probably blamed that on the bandaging yesterday, at least if he had even noticed it at all, what with the pain and thinking he was dead. Shaking his head a bit before looking up quizzically at his parents, “I mean, I guess there’s sort of a vibratie fullness”.

Jack taps his chin, “well maybe you did get literally infused with ghost energy? I could see how that would vibrate and feel filling. Like eating too much”. Jack wonders if maybe this could happen if someone just absorbed a insanely high amount of ectoplasmic energy? If that’s the case then maybe it would eventually all just leak out of him or get used up? Danny snorts a little bit but then promptly confuses the hell of both Jack and Maddie, completely derailing Jack’s train of thought, “and I mean the portal’s a bunch of ghost energy isn’t it? And that hums so?”. Both of them glance at each other before Maddie asks, “it, hums?”. Now Danny’s looking at them confused but then groans and seems to be more so talking to himself, “oh don’t tell me only I can hear that”. 

Jack pats him on the shoulder, with the amount of energy that must be in the portal he wouldn’t be too surprised if it did make sound, “maybe? We weren’t exactly focusing on the portal last night”. Danny rubs at his neck, “oh yeah, point”. Jack chuckles a little bit and pats him again, he can’t really blame his son for being slightly out of it, “well, that’s something easy enough to check, if you want to”. Jack will admit he’s a bit excited by Danny nodding and Danny does glare at him a bit over that excitement. “Sorry Danny-boy, but we’re scientists, hard not to get a little excited. So long as you keep healing and are ok”, Danny sighs, “yeah I know, just, don’t start treating me like an experiment or something”. Jack blinks, a bit frazzled by that, what kind of father would do that? He was curious yes but not like that. 

“What!? Of course not, I mean we’d like to run tests, you know, figure out what’s going on and that you’re ok. But again, you’re our son first”, Maddie nods with Jack as they all head down to the lab. Maddie ruffles Danny’s hair a bit, looking to make him feel more comfortable and like this is less freaky, “if you’re not comfortable or don’t want to do something then we won’t. All you have to do is say so. And we are absolutely not doing something if we even suspect it’s hurting you”. Both them are glad he smiles warmly at that, before rubbing his neck, “I think I can be ok with most things then, just please tell me what you’re doing first? Also yeah, the portal hums”. 

Danny knows pretty well immediately that it’s just him who can hear it as his parents look at the portal and back at him, both looking slightly guilty. “Sorry sweetie, it’s just you”, which is just wonderful, something else completely weird about him. Though clearly his mom’s got some kind of idea, based on how her eyes practically light up, “maybe it’s because it’s the portal's energy that’s in you? So it’s just reacting to that”. Huh, she’s got a point there. Plus it’s not just that it has a sound, he can feel the humming too and it makes him feel kind of...comfy. Like the air around him is a thick soft blanket and like something is softly massaging or kneading the inside of his chest. Shrugging at them before Jack asks, “does it sound kind of like a deep humming in time with a powerful drum beat but inside of a cave?”. Danny blinks a bit because that’s pretty darn close before cluing in that that must be what they heard in his chest, “yeah but kind of soft, like a deep cats purr”. Obviously that’s enough for them to pretty well decide these two things are related and yeah it does make sense. “Well maybe if it’s the portal's energy it will get used up or fade away over time, I could see it being possible that you got such a massive shock of energy that it’s enough to make you a bit ghostly”, his dad has a bit of a point, so what? Is he just going to do random ghost stuff till it goes away or something? What if it just doesn’t though? He really doesn’t want to voice that worry though, he’s got no clue what he’s going to do with all this odd if it is permanent. Though he guesses there’s not really all that much right now, but what if there’s more?

Danny raises an eyebrow as his mom pulls out this box thing, “it’s like a scanner, a regular hospital scanner that we modified to also pick up on all things ecto. All it does is scan though”. Yeah, Danny figures that might be a good idea. See what’s going on in there, regular hospitals are probably out of the question now. Oh man, yeah they’d freak over his vitals alone, assuming this was just his new normal anyway. 

Shuffling to sit in front of it and nodding at her, “remember just tell me if you want me to stop, for any reason. And I mean that Danny”. Danny smiles at her, even if he’s a bit nervous. Though kind of wishing the machine wasn’t blocking his view of his parents' faces. Especially when he clearly hears his dad mutter, “woah”. 

Jack and Maddie glance from each other to the machine's screen. Maddie taps on it a few times to make sure it’s not glitching. Shaking her head in mild disbelief as the image doesn’t change. Smack dab in the middle of her son’s chest is a ball of pure ectoplasmic energy, extraordinarily strong and condensed ectoplasmic energy. No wonder they could hear this! Actually be more weird if they couldn’t. Though Maddie’s not exactly pleased that his hearts been pushed to the side a bunch and his lungs too, to make room for the energy ball. Jack mutters faintly, “well there goes the, just absorbed a bunch of energy and it’ll go away, idea. Plain energy couldn’t reorganise organs”. Maddie’s not sure what new idea he has got, as Jack snaps his fingers and starts rummaging through books, as Danny pipes up sounding rather worried, “um guys? “Woah” what?”. Maddie quickly takes a freeze frame on the image and waves for him to come over, feeling a little bad for worrying her son; but it was pretty hard to not be shocked by this. 

Watching as her son goes wide-eyed and puts his uninjured hand over the centre of his chest, “woah, that’s, in me? What, what is it? Ghost energy? Ghost portal energy?”. Maddie nods patting him on the back before speaking, “yeah, it’s definitely ecto-energy, but other than that, I’m not quite sure”. 

Jack nearly knocks Maddie over as he excitedly slides back over, plopping one of the potential theories journals down. Maddie feels kind of silly that she didn’t think of this as Danny leans over the book, “ghost cores?”. Danny shuffles a bit before speaking again, “looks like that’s kind of a flat out ghost only thing though. So what? Are we back to, ghost but not a ghost, somehow”. Maddie’s not even sure there’s another explanation at this point. Cores are supposed to be like a heart or the centre of a ghost. Let’s them form, holds their consciousness, grants powers, the most vital thing. Absorbing and feeding off the ectoplasm in the zone to sustain itself, so what is even sustaining her son’s? Not only that but he’s not like a ghost at all outside of the apparent powers and so far what happened earlier with the transformation thing, was just a one-off occurrence. He should be lit up like a lightbulb with this much ecto-energy in him. Maddie just mutters at him, rather stumped, “I don’t know”. 

And that was not really the answer Danny wanted, but apparently his body or core or whatever decided now was a good time to be invisible, as his mom pokes at him, “sweetie, you’re invisible, again”. Danny tilts his head down and yelps a little at his see-through hand, he can make out a weird outline but other than that. Shaking it before he just tries willing it away but the, invisibility feeling he guesses, stays, “well, I don’t know how to make it stop so”. His mom nods clearly sympathetic but then looks a little sheepish, “you think maybe you could go in front of the scanner again? See if anything looks different?”. Shrugging, he goes and sits back on the stool but promptly facepalms, realising she can’t freaking see him. “I’m on the stool again mom”, he feels a little bad about starling her as she snaps her head to face him. Clearly embarrassed as she talks, “alright sweetie, just give me a second”. It doesn’t take long before she pokes her head over, “it’s still the same, might as well come back over. Just tap on the desk so I know though”. 

Danny feels incredibly awkward having to actually do that just so she knows where he is. Sure he can already think of so many sneaky ways he could use this, heck Sam would adore this. But right now he’d like to be able to actually control it. Trying again to make it stop to no avail. Danny’s a bit embarrassed now as his dad looks up from the journal and looks around a bit confused, speaking a bit awkwardly again, “I’m over here dad”. 

“Oh! You’re invisible again. Well alright, I’m guessing you can’t control this can you?”, Danny damn well wishes he could, because it is beginning to annoy him. Shaking his head, “I’m trying to make it stop but no luck”. Both of them nod at him or, he guesses, more so in the direction of his voice. His mom smiles softly, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out sweetie, and you got us to help, as much as we can anyway”. 

All three of them hear the ding from the oven, Danny chuckles, “lunch already wow”. His dad chuckles, “yup! Time sure goes by when there’s a mystery to solve!”. Danny smiles a bit but gets jostled by his mom bumping into him but that seems to be enough to get him back to visibility again, “oh sorry Danny and oh!”. Again Danny feels bad about startling her, “uh, sorry?”. 

Maddie quickly waves off his sorry, he’s got nothing to apologise for, he doesn’t even have control over this. Though she’s seriously hoping she’s right about him being able to learn to control it. Smiling at him softly, “it’s fine, and I’m guessing you want food?”. Danny nods but it’s clear he’s a bit freaked out as he heads up the steps before her. 

Maddie’s in the middle of serving out her own portion of spaghetti when Danny’s goth friend, Sam, full strength kicks the door in. Nearly making her drop the pot and startling Danny enough to phase through his stool; which clearly startled him even more as he scoots away from it and scrambles to stand up. 

Putting down the pot, she joins Danny in glaring at them, Sam apparently doesn’t care though. Pointing at Danny while dragging Tucker in without even looking inside yet, “I had to hear from one of the teachers that you go- OH MY GOD!”. Tucker quickly joins Sam in gaping, “HOLY SHIT DUDE!”. 

Danny can’t really blame them for being freaked and now he kind of wishes he put on a shirt, “uh, was kicking in the door really necessary?”. Sam closes her mouth and clears her throat before speaking, “what, what happened?”. 

“Dude, just damn”, Tucker tilts his head a little, “looks kind of badass though”. Danny wouldn’t know, he hasn’t even looked himself over really and he can’t say he really gives a damn how it looks right now. Glaring at Tucker a little, “I don’t really care”. Blinking a bit as Danny realises that it’s only a little past noon, “did? Did you guys leave school?”. Danny’s pretty sure his moms crossed her arms and he can see his dad has, while Sam puts her hands on her hips and Tucker just looks unimpressed. “Danny, you didn’t even text us that something happened”, Danny does really care that they’re unimpressed when how alive he was is in question, “that wasn’t exactly a priority”. 

“Dude, what even happened? You look like a lightning bolt assaulted you”, Danny would almost prefer that because at least then his body wouldn’t be doing all this weird crap. And what is he even going to say? He doesn’t get a chance to come up with something as his mom responds, “he’s supposed to be resting not texting, like I told the school, there was an accident and Danny got zapped”. 

“Uh, no offence Mrs. F, but,” Tucker points at Danny’s chest, “that looks a lot worse than zapped”, oh it damn well was worse than zapped. At the very least he died for a bit and now there’s a ball of energy in his chest. Danny can’t help but look down at his chest though, officially glad they did not show up yesterday. Also officially deciding he’d like to actually know what’s happened to him before even attempting to tell his friends. Sam walks up to him but looks a lot more concerned than upset now, “there’s no way that didn’t hurt, while scarring is cool and all. There’s no way we could stay at school not knowing if you were ok”. And now she looks unimpressed again, “I mean Danny for all we knew you were in a hospital or something”. Danny admits she’s got a point there but both his friends worriedly hovering around him and scrutinising him, combined with his parents slowly looking more defensive; makes him feel like he’s just causing problems and how he’d really rather not be here right now. 

And then his body decides to oblige him, and he’s not sure if he’s glad he recognises the feeling as invisibility near instantly. But even if he hadn’t, his friends both jumping and going wide-eyed would have clued him in. 

Jack jerkily stands up and glances at Maddie just before everyone hears Danny yelp and practically shout, “oh come on!”. Jack glances down at the floor, quickly realising his son must have phased through the floor. He jerkily points at the lab door before running down, only catching Sam wave her hand through the air where Danny had been. 

Maddie watches her husband retreat before looking back to her son’s slightly freaked friend’s, “now I know that was unexpected but Danny really needs to just rest. I’m not sure having friends over is the best thing”. Judging by how both of them gape at her incredulously, they’re not going anywhere. “Ok, I, no we, need an honest answer after that. Is Danny ok? Like actually ok? What just happened?”, Sam almost sounds aggressive while Tucker looks down and taps at the ground with his foot before looking, of all things, impressed. Whispering, “holy shit”, but then snapping his head over to Danny as both he and Jack come back up.

Maddie cringes a bit at how Tucker erratically points at her son before speaking, “dude! You have superpowers! Oh man, that’s cool”. 

Danny blinks and gapes at his friend a little, cool was not the reaction he was dreading. Scrunching his eyebrows up, “cool?”. Letting his arms fall limp at his sides and staring at them incredulously as both of them nod, Tucker a fair bit more excitedly, “dude, what. You try your body doing random crap with no control. And that’s not even mentioning that dead not dead but maybe dead crap”. 

Danny can’t even bring himself to care about his mom cringing, as he’s officially certain he has the worlds weirdest friends. Sam tilts her head at him, “last I checked corpses don’t walk around Danny. Again, what happened? No way this was just a zap”. Well at this point there’s really no point in even waiting, but considering literally none of them really seem to know exactly, “accident, electrocution, pain and bullshit”. 

Maddie sighs and sits down, she’s both impressed and weirded out that her son’s friends aren’t utterly freaked, instead they seem impressed by his little display. Clearly they’re not satisfied with Danny’s response though, “he got caught inside the portal when it activated”. Danny rubs his injured arm a little, “I hardly even care about that after the whole ghost thing. I was literally dead”. Danny glares at Tucker, “and dude, I’ve been way too focused on making sure I’m not dead dead to find any of this cool”. 

Jack pats his son on the back, but phases straight through him on the third pat, making his son jerk and glare at him a bit. Effectively ruining the comforting effect Jack had been aiming for, “sorry, but we are still positive you’re not dead”. But Sam looks a little impressed and Tucker looks excited, “dude! What does that even feel like?”. 

Danny blinks at his friends, “it...tingles”. Why was that what his friends cared about? “So what? You can go through things and be invisible?”, Danny and his parents nod at them. Now Sam actually looks confused, which is finally a more expected reaction, “and did you say you were a ghost? So what? Are these like ghost powers?”. Well duh, Danny’s not sure what else they could possibly be. 

Danny can tell his dads still clearly a bit excited over the whole researching and trying to find an explanation thing, which is still a little off-putting. As Jack talks a little animatedly, “still trying to figure out why, but making sure Danny-boy here’s ok was and is priority”. Danny blushes a bit but he likes the reminder. But it’s clear his mom is going to shoo his friends off, as she walks up to them again, “I know you kids are curious but you should be in school, and Danny really does need to rest. We’re figuring this out, you can pepper him with questions later”. Danny can read the protectiveness on his mom's face as she points her finger assertively at Tucker, “but only if he’s ok with it. No pushing him”. Honestly, Danny finds that a little embarrassing. He’s freaked and completely damn weird, not fragile. Well, ok he hopes he’s not fragile. 

Danny is a bit surprised that his friends actually let her push them out, sticking his head out the door before she closes it though, looking at both of them, “obviously don’t tell anyone. I seriously can not deal with the whole school freaking on me. And I think all three of us have really earned the title weirdo trio at this point”. Tucker smirks at him, “how nice of you to finally join us, and dude, duh. We’re not idiots”. Sam pushes him on the shoulder with a wide grin, “the two of us have always been straight strange, you just came from a weird family. Now you’re straight strange too”. Danny wants to feel offended but she does have a point and her now soft smile makes it hard to be mad, “and Danny, your conscious and walking around. If you’re dead or a ghost, or just partly that way then who cares. Just makes you unique”. Danny has no response for that, she’s acting like he just got a tattoo or something. “I, um, see you after school I guess”. 

Maddie’s honestly impressed her son’s friends didn’t freak, and he actually seems more okay as he turns back to them, “well, that was unexpected. Kind of nice to know though”. Maddie ruffles his hair up, “you’ve got good friends sweetie”. 

Jack smiles widely down at his son, who he's glad to see returns it readily, “you know, powers are a bit cool. But well, you know us, anything ghost is cool”. Jack hopes that with his friends also agreeing that Danny will see this all better, even if they still don’t really know what’s going on. Danny sighs but there’s still a hint of a smile, “I guess, but right now it’s just freaky and annoying and startling and a lot of things. None of it even makes sense”. Jack titles his head because that’s not quite true, “well, we’re pretty sure you have a core. So that must be where the powers are coming from”. 

Maddie blinks releasing that doesn’t quite make sense. Core’s are the heart of a ghost yes and their powers too, but from what she knows their cores are only directly responsible for more specific or unique powers. Not the general ones her son’s been displaying. Ectoplasm by its very nature can become invisible or intangible. That’s not to mention that ghosts use their cores power(s) by channelling it through their ectoplasm. Ectoplasm in their bodies, that makes up their form. Maddie looks at her son both worried and baffled, he really should need ectoplasm all over and in him to do what he’s been doing. Clearing her throat, “I might have an idea but, well, I’ll need a blood sample”. 

Danny is both confused and freaked out, what would a blood sample solve? He guesses that’s a routine thing at hospitals but it’s not like he’s been bleeding or anything. Deciding it couldn’t hurt and it’s not like they haven’t taken blood samples from him before, shrugging, “I guess, but why?”. Clearly his dads a bit confused too, but seems to understand way quicker than him as she explains, “if theory is correct a core really shouldn’t be able to even give you powers that can actually be used. Unless there’s ectoplasm to act as a conduit and ectoplasm innately has invisibility and intangibility. So I want to check your blood for ectoplasm”. 

Danny can’t help but glance incredulously at the veins in his wrist, they look pretty normal. But if he flat-out bleeds green that will honestly be freakier than phasing through the floor. Nodding at his mom a bit numbly and seriously hoping she’s wrong. Because could ectoplasm or whatever even actually support a living human? 

Muttering as they’re back down in the lab again, “so what does it mean if there’s ectoplasm instead of blood? Because again with the, what am I question?”. His moms smile is clearly meant to be reassuring and it’s also genuine, which does make him feel a bit better, “it’s more that I’m looking for specks of impure ectoplasm rather than expecting straight pure ectoplasm”, she pats his hand before continuing, “see it’s already odd that you’re not glowing with likely having a core, but to also having nothing but pure ectoplasm goes from odd to impossible. At the very least, your veins would be glowing and green”. 

Maddie watches him give an accusatory glare at his uninjured arm as she wipes the crook of his elbow with a cotton swab. Holding up the needle, “you okay with this?”. Watching him nod a bit jerkily makes her feel a little bad, but of course he’s nervous. She’s pretty sure they all are, but if he does just have little specks then that further proves he’s very much alive and human. Plus it explains the use of ghost powers, and it’s perfectly possible to just decontaminate some impure ectoplasmic particles. Arguably the core should just fade from there, even he couldn’t, or possibly didn’t want to, be decontaminated; it’s arguably safe to live with a mild amount of ectoplasmic contamination. 

However, everyone goes wide-eyed as a mixture of red and green fills the tube. Maddie gapes as she holds up the, now filled, first tests tube. Looking to be about an exact fifty-fifty mix, “I, I’ve got no explanation for this”. 

Jack gingerly grabs the tube out of her hands and tilts it around some, it honestly looks kind of neat but he’s got a bad feeling this is pure ectoplasm. At the same time, he’s got no clue why it isn’t glowing. Even impure ectoplasm glows a little. 

Danny’s honestly feeling a bit like a lab rat now, with the quizzical way he’s dads just staring at the vial before running off with it, doing who knows what to it. While his mom fills up the two other tubes, though he can’t help but watch. 

He gets a bit startled when his mom offers him one, looking up at her confused. But he doesn’t even have to ask, “it’s yours, sweetie, it doesn’t make any sense but I imagine you’re curious. Well, and freaked out. I’m going to go work on this one so you hold on to that one, maybe snoop it some yourself?”. Danny nods a bit numbly as he takes it from her. 

Staring down at it, he can’t help but find the swirling of colours kind of...pretty. Beautiful even, it kind of looks like a little galaxy; a galaxy that was inside him. Feeling a little bit better, he clutches it to his chest as he walks over to his parents. 

“So um, what are you doing to it?”, flicking his eyes over to his dad as he taps on a machine. “Separating it, hopefully this baby will separate ectoplasm from blood”, he turns and smiles softly at Danny, “that way we can all get a better look”. Danny nods, deciding that makes sense. Kind of hard to get good results or whatever, if the two are just mixed together in a swirling mess. 

Tilting his head at his mom, who’s looking down a microscope. But the only response he gets from her is a gasp, at first he’s worried but at realising her gasp sounds more pleasant than freaked, he’s just confused. “Mom, what is it?”, his dad also looks more curious than worried; but Danny’s not sure if he finds that comforting or not. 

Maddie’s not even sure what to say as she stares down at the, clearly intermingling, blood and ectoplasm. It’s pretty clear the ectoplasm is pure, which just makes this even more confusing. Watching as her son’s blood appears to be coating over the ectoplasm, like it’s hiding it. When the ectoplasm should logically be destroying the blood. Right now, she’d think the ectoplasm was the one being destroyed if she couldn’t clearly see it’s particles there. It’s almost like the two are...coexisting. But that’s completely impossible, isn’t it? It doesn’t take long for the whole droplet sample to be completely red. 

Pulling her face up and gaping incredulously at her son, “I’m not sure how to even describe this”. Clearly seeing the mild panic on her son’s face, “but, it’s very obvious that the ectoplasm isn’t hurting your blood sweetie”. Danny looks from her to the slide, squinting at it, “it’s entirely red? Did the ectoplasm go away or something?”. Maddie glances back down at the slide still stunned, “or something, the ectoplasm’s still there. It’s just, you’re blood is covering? it up”. Turning back to her son, “I think, if we left this all here for a bit. It would all be red when we came back. But it would still have the same concentration of ectoplasm”. 

Jack sticks his face over the microscope as Maddie moves aside, he’s shocked to see that she’s right. But there’s something else too, it looks like the blood and ectoplasm is sharing, sharing nutrients. Which is beyond illogical. But then it hits him, the ectoplasm, it’s being sustained and stabilised by the blood. And the blood cell walls and particles appear to be reinforced. Like, mutualistic symbiosis. 

Patting at his son’s arm excitedly as he gets an idea, pushing a piece of metal at him without even looking away from the microscope, “give that a squeeze, like as hard as you can”. 

Danny’s got no clue where his dads going with this, “uh, okay?”. Glancing at his mom who shrugs, obviously, she’s got no clue either. Shrugging back at her before squeezing, only getting a second to dwell on the slight vibrating in his hand before both of them promptly gape at his hand, as he only has mild difficulty in completely crushing the pole. There’s no way that should be possible for him, at all. 

Danny’s guessing the crunching sound is what gets his dad to turn around, and Danny only gapes more as his dad doesn’t even look surprised. Watching as his dad nods at the metal, “your blood and ectoplasm is doing more than just existing together, it looks like they’re supporting each other. Blood stabilising ectoplasm and ectoplasm strengthening blood. Making all of you stronger”. 

“So what? Super strength? Ghost strength?”, Danny glances back down at the metal as his dad nods. Flicking his eyes over to his mom as she talks, “with that logic I think, no I’m sure, it’s more than just physical strength. Everything should be strengthened”, obviously something else hits her as she snaps her fingers, though Danny’s not sure where she could be going with this. Pointing at his arm, “you’re healing. Maybe it wasn’t because of what caused it but because of you”. 

“Uh, well I’m not cutting myself or something to test that”, his mom looks flat-out startled by that. Shaking her head vigorously as she responds, “what?! No! Of course not sweetie. There’s a much easier way”. Now Danny’s just confused until she points at the cotton ball tapped on the crook of his elbow. Quickly going to peel the tape off but wincing, having forgotten about his messed up hand. “Sweetie I’ve got it, don’t hurt yourself”, Danny just nods as he holds his arm out to her, as she peels off the tape booth of them blink down at his unmarked arm. 

Jack taps at his chin, “speed and your senses probably too”. Jack’s just going to assume that if his son’s senses are better he hasn’t really noticed, otherwise, Jack’s sure his son would be very overwhelmed by that. It’s clear he wasn’t aware of the strength for sure, or maybe it has to be activated or something. Jack doesn’t really get to mull it over as the centrifuge finishes. 

Popping it open and pulling out the vial, there’s a fine layer of fizzing ecto-energy, plasma, pale green ectoplasm, white blood cells and platelets, red blood cells, vibrantly glowing ectoplasm, with a small bit of painfully bright glowing blue something? at the bottom. 

Jack wastes no time in getting out the blue stuff before it could possibly mix with anything. While his son tilts his head, “what even is that?”. Jack really has no clue and looking at Maddie, it’s clear she doesn’t know either. So the only response he gives is a shrug, which Danny is clearly not impressed by.

Maddie lets Jack deal with the unidentified stuff under the microscope, while she takes samples of the pale ectoplasm and white blood cells. Explaining to her son as she begins testing it for DNA, “I’m checking to see if your DNA’s changed or been damaged at all, as for the ectoplasm, I’m checking that against the portals samples. If they’re the same energy they should match”. Danny nods, “yeah that sounds like a good idea”. 

Maddie’s glad he’s more ok with this but she’s flat-out freaked when the results print out. Grabbing the blood DNA profile first and finding that half his DNA is completely missing. Which is not only not maintainable but should be instantly deadly. It makes zero sense. Grabbing at the ectoplasm print out next and having no clue what to do with this. Not only does it have DNA, which it only should if it was taken from a ghost, but it also only has half the proper DNA. On top of that, it does not match the portal, which completely eliminates their only really good theory. 

But somethings nagging at her and as she looks between the two print outs it clicks. The two samples, if combined, result in a complete DNA profile. Blinking down at the ectoplasm printout and tilting her head, each ghost would have unique DNA, like humans, and this ghost DNA matched the human DNA; which only left one possibility. They belonged to and were explicitly created by one person, this was her son’s ghost DNA, or half of it at least, not just some ectoplasm. His body would have to be creating more, actively maintaining these levels; this absolutely was not ectoplasmic contamination. 

Danny is very much freaked out now, not just because of the startled and baffled expressions on his moms face. Side-eyeing what was left of the separated sample from him, as the ectoplasm seems to be foaming or something and the red blood is turning black. “Uh, um, mom?”, Danny honestly doesn’t care that he sounds a bit freaked out though his mom instantly bringing her attention to him does make him feel a bit better. 

Danny doesn’t even bother with pointing as he can tell she’s followed his gaze by how she gasps, quickly taking samples of both the red, now basically black, and vibrant green, now mostly sticky looking foam. And practically shoving his dad out of the way to look at the new slides. 

Danny just glances worriedly from the vial to his dad who now also looks deeply worried, but looks down at the slide he has. Tapping it on his fingers a bit, “well, son. You definitely have a core I’d say but I’m not sure how important that is right now”. Danny just points at the slide and blurts out, “core ectoplasm?”. His dad nods before his mom practically drags him back over to the microscope, and judging by how she looks a little teary-eyed when she turns to face him this isn’t good. 

Danny fiddles with the one vial he’s still holding on to as she talks, obviously trying to speak gently, “sweetie, this, whatever exactly it is, isn’t going to go away and I really really think we shouldn’t try to make it”. Danny had a gut feeling that was the case but it’s downright freaky and daunting to know for sure. He was stuck with this, and he still didn’t even know what this even is. Gulping a little, “I, I had a feeling. That this, this was probably permanent”. His moms nods softly and glances back at the microscope, while his dad stands up straight, “son, I’m not sure how but your blood and this ectoplasm, they need each other. They’re not just helping each other, they’re codependent”. His mom blinks a bit before grabbing at the papers and shoving them at his dad. And now he really wants to know what that says, he hopes clearing his throat is enough to make that clear. 

He has to clear his throat three times before his mom gets the message, “sorry Danny, sweetie. I’m just a little frazzled”. Danny is not happy to hear that, because that means whatever it is its either extremely weird or bad. She then clears her throat before continuing, “you’re DNA is messed up, really badly. And the ectoplasm, it’s not just ectoplasm. It’s your ectoplasm, as in specifically yours. With its own DNA matching your human DNA. But that DNA’s also messed up”. Yeah ok, that is both extremely weird and bad. So what? He had two different species DNA? Alive DNA and dead DNA? But both were screwy? Is his whatever going to start foaming or blackening suddenly? He’s not even sure either of them hears him whisper, “oh god, what am I?”. Because really, with this there’s no way he’s just human. So what, human and ghost? He doesn’t get a chance to ponder that as all of them hear his dad mutter, “like two halves of a whole”. 

Jack rubs at the two papers, it’s clear to him that it’s like two puzzle pieces that click together. Two technically separate things but are meaningless and incomplete unless clicked together to make a whole. Flicking his eyes to the microscope, two things that don’t work apart. Flicking his eyes back over to his son, or where his son was, glancing down at Maddie makes it clear that Danny must have gone invisible again. 

Immediately deciding not to mention it, just in case he freaks him out more. 

Maddie scrunches up her eyebrows before leaning back to squinting down at the papers that Jack’s still holding, because something just struck her. This, it was like hybrid plants, to different plants combined to make something new but also not. Blinking as she remembers how Danny’s blood and ectoplasm looked, because it really was his ectoplasm wasn’t it?, it was pretty much exactly half and half. And his DNA was half and half. Looking back to where she thinks her son is, thinking she might just have an answer to the one question he’s asked repeatedly. But really how was that even possible? Humans and ghosts weren’t compatible, they were mutually exclusive, weren’t they? Human blood and pure ectoplasm shouldn’t even be able to be in physical contact as the ectoplasm would be corroding the blood, none the less be able to coexist; and certainly not be codependent. And yet the impossible clearly was possible. 

Clearing her throat, “sweetie, with this I think it’s clear to say that you are still human and alive, but also a ghost”.

Danny can flat out tell she left out the, “and dead”, part; he doesn’t blame her because how does that even make sense. Dead and alive? At once? What? But what other possibility was there? All the other theories or ideas had been pretty well disproven. Plus, he had pretty well come to this conclusion himself already, human and ghost. “So what? I’m half ghost? Half dead?”, Danny scratches his head because, come to think of it, if he’s part way dead then what the hell is keeping him part way alive? 

Danny can clearly tell the, “dead”, comment is what made his mom cringe and his dads, a fair bit forced, comforting smile really does the opposite of making him feel comforted. But remembering how Sam had just flat out called him dead or part dead like it was nothing, and Tucker clearly agreed that it was no big deal. Heck, they’d known about this situation for all of half an hour and had pretty well decided he was a little bit dead, a ghost, and that it was...cool. Danny’s not sure if he feels the same.

“Are we, like, sure I’m at least partly alive and staying that way?”, his parents near instant and confident nods actually do work to comfort him. So alive and dead, that was his life now or part life? Half-life?. Shaking his head as he goes to run his uninjured hand through his hair only to stop short. Blinking at the faint semi-transparent outline of his hand, which he knew no one else could actually see. Groaning, “well, okay then. I guess I’m just going to have to, have to learn to control this then”, Danny seriously hopes he can because there’s no way he can tolerate randomly going through things or being invisible. 

Danny tries to make the hair-on-end invisibility feeling, feel more like hair being smoothed down and is actually a bit startled as he blinks back into the visible spectrum. 

Jack’s glad he can actually see his son again, but he’s more glad that his son doesn’t seem too freaked. Aiming to be reassuring as he walks up at pats him on the shoulder, “well I’m sure you’ll figure it out Danny-boy. You’re a Fenton after all, and you’ve got us to help, of course”. Maddie comes up beside him and bends down to be on eye level with their son, “and I think you’ve got your friends too”. Both of them are glad his smile is a genuine one, “I really hope so, I know and I think they might actually like it. Which is weird in and of itself”. 

“I can’t say I’m too surprised sweetie, you’re friends have always been a bit strange. But strange can be good”, Maddie tilts her head back at the equipment, “but I think this is enough strange discoveries for one day”. Turning back and smiling at him again, “besides I’m going to have to make a pretty big super, with your friends coming over”. She can tell that he’s a little uncomfortable about something as he rubs his neck. She elects to wait for him to speak as he gives her a slightly nervous smile, “um, do you think my strange is good?”. 

Jack doesn’t even give Maddie a chance to respond, because really he does still find this a bit neat even if it’s also a bit startling, “so long as it doesn’t start doing you harm then absolutely, Danny-boy. Besides you’re still very much human, just enough ghost to have powers”. Maddie blinks a bit before nodding, “yes, I think saying you’re flat-out half ghost might be a bit of a stretch. You’re DNA might look to be exactly split but you don’t look anything like a ghost”, Maddie nods strongly because think about the hybrid thing, “if you really were exactly half like that you should look it”. 

Danny’s not really sure he believes that, he did literally look like a ghost for a while and maybe all the ghost stuff was just inside or being covered up, like how his blood apparently hides his ectoplasm. “Well, what if it’s just hidden or not noticeable yet? What if I start changing?”, he can tell neither of them really thought of that. But his dad smiles warmly, “then we’ll just have to see, son. But even if you do change you’re still you, just a bit different”. 

Danny can’t help but return his dads smile at that, though he’s hoping he doesn’t get any weirder. Dealing with having powers was enough of a mind trip and hassle, without adding ghost puberty or whatever into the mix. 

Deciding he really could do with some normalcy, Danny points at the stairs, “so, food?”. Earning loose smiles from both of them, with his mom messing up his hair before heading up. Grumbling, “mooooom”, as he follows. 

Danny’s not too surprised that his friends get over damn quick, Tucker finger guns at him before spotting the food, “nice! Thanks, Mrs. F!”. Turning back to Danny after sitting down, Danny can tell he’s got something probably stupid to say, “so, hows half-life or whatever treating you”. 

“You’re awful, Tuck”, Danny can tell they can all hear the slight humour in his voice as no one even seems to look concerned. Shaking his head as he actually responds to his friend, “well besides this being a forever thing, I’m pretty well a superpowered hybrid thing with no damn control”. 

“Sweetie, you’re not a thing”, Danny winces a bit because that is so not how he meant that. Sam puts her hands on her hips, “of course he’s not and I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it that way”. Danny points at Sam and nods before starting on his noodles. While Tucker chuckles, “again, cool. Freaking spiderman but ghosts instead of spiders”. Danny can’t help but cough and laugh a little as the image of a ghost biting him pops into his head. 

Maddie’s got a feeling that maybe his friends might be better at making him feel alright with this, their carefree and joking nature seems to be making him at the least less overwhelmed and pessimistic. Heck, they hardly even seem slightly bothered or even phased by this. If anything they seem almost proud, like this is a gift. Sam clearly picks up on Maddie’s assessment, “Mrs. F, Danny’s unique and unique is good. Besides pretty sure we’re still stranger than him”. 

Maddie’s not sure what to make of that because being part ghost and having powers was definitely beyond strange, just how unusual where her son’s friends? Obviously very, as Tucker promptly baffles her, “so what can you do anyway? You can’t like vomit up ghosts or something? Even if that would be hilarious”. Danny starts cough laughing again, and puts his hands over his eyes as he wheezes, “god no, what? Tuck man, why, why is that the first, god, the first place your brain went?”. Sam points at both of them, “could you imagine if Spider-Man did that but with spiders? Or webbing?”. 

Now even Jack is laughing because that is so absurd. Though it’s clear absurd is good for his son, “thanks for horrifying me Sam. I’d think, think I’d rather die, again, over spider vomit”. 

Danny’s still wheezing a bit as Tucker starts poking at him, “so powers dude?”. Danny goes to shove him but, based on the tingling, he went through him instead. Tilting his over and yeah his hand went through Tucker head but Danny doesn’t even feel bad as Tucker just look animatedly excited. Watching as Tucker erratically waves his hand through Danny’s a couple of times before Danny can sort of tell he’s not doing the whatever anymore. Not even bothering to warn Tucker as he straight up slams his hand into Danny’s now solid arm. Smirking as Tucker yanks back his arm, “you deserved that”. Sam’s snort clearly means she agrees. 

Tucker rubs his hand for only a second before poking at Danny again, so Danny rolls his eyes and decides its best to just indulge his friends. Even if he really has no clue what in all he can actually do or just how much it’s affecting his body, “Tuck, you are insufferable. But, outside of the stuff I’ve already accidentally pull on you guys, the invisibility and go through thing. We’ve pretty much come to the conclusion of at least super strength, speed, healing and senses. Though I haven’t noticed them, so no clue really”. 

“Dude, that’s already better than Spider-Man!”

Maddie can’t help but shake her head, it’s like they didn’t see even a slight problem with this. But she guesses kids will be kids, heck maybe her son wouldn’t have been freaked himself if it wasn’t for the injury and actually caring about how alive he is. His friends seem to not care about that at all. 

But Maddie is glad to hear some concern in Sam’s voice as she points at Danny’s arm and asks, “speaking of healing, how bad was that?”. Maddie’s not sure if she should be worried as Danny rubs at the centre of his chest, but the action seems more absent-minded than from discomfort, “pretty well everywhere there’s a scar I was burnt up. But I wasn’t exactly focused on how I freaking looked. I thought I was dead and not to mention in pain”. Both of them cringe a bit, but Tucker smacks him on the shoulder, “well I guess you have one damn extreme origin story then. The people with the wildest and most extreme backstories always make for the best superhero’s”. All three Fenton’s gape at him, before Danny flicks him in the head, “dude, what? I’m not about to go play freaking vigilante. Hell, I’m not even leaving the house till I’ve got at least some control over this crap”. 

Sam points her finger at him, “so if a ghost popped up and started attacking people, you’re telling me you wouldn’t do the Fenton thing and beat it back to wherever?”. 

Jack blinks as he hadn’t even considered his son actually using these abilities for something. But if he’s literally a bit ghost wouldn’t it be kind of messed up for him to be a ghost hunter? Even with the powers he’s displayed he’d still need weapons too and...Jack pales a little and he stares accusingly at one of the ectoguns lying on the counter. They were built not to hurt humans, but what about his son? He wasn’t completely human, these were made to hurt ghosts and he was a bit of a ghost. 

Maddie can tell something’s bugging Jack but she’s much more concerned with the idea of her son putting himself in danger to fight ghosts. Sure it’s the family business but he’s still just a kid, and Danny looks a bit embarrassed. Meaning he absolutely would go fight some ghost, “while I’d be excited at the prospect of Danny being interested in ghost hunting, I don’t think you should be encouraging him to just go off and pick fights”. 

Danny’s damn sure he actually would, if the ghost or whatever was putting people in danger. No way is he about to let someone get hurt, and no way is he just going to stand by and let that happen; when he’s possibly capable of stopping it. Blinking and tilting his head, finding his own pattern of thought to be a bit weird. Normally he was more of a flight not fight guy. And that was with humans not ghosts, ghosts which apparently all have powers. Sure he’d take Dash’s, and other bullies, hits for other people but bullies aren’t aiming to kill or majorly injure someone. A ghost would be, wouldn’t it? Yet that thought just makes him feel like he needs to get involved. Which is again weird and definitely not his mental normal. 

Danny can tell that his moms noticed his mild confusion as she’s looking at him quizzically. Shrugging at his friends, “I mean I guess? Again, that’s not something I’ve been exactly thinking about”. Both of them roll their eyes at him but neither respond as his dad puts a small rock on the table, “uh, what’s with the rock?”. 

Danny’s officially a bit worried at how his mom's face matches his dad's concerned face pretty quickly. And it’s just plain weird that a rock could be causing that. Tucker tilts his head while Danny’s dad clears his throat a little, “it’s a bit of ectorainium, and thinking of ghost hunting. Well, this stuff is what fuels a lot of our gear currently and it’s supposed to, well, hurt ghosts”. Danny doesn’t get to dwell on this as his mom speaks up quickly, “I think what your father’s trying to say is, that he is and now I am, worried our stuff might be able to hurt you”. 

Sam instantly looks defensive and protective, which actually pleases Maddie, “if anything can hurt him now then you two better find a way to fix that”. Both Fenton parents nod aggressively, Jack speaking up, “of course! It’s bad enough our portal hurt him”. 

Danny waits till they’re all distracted with borderline bickering about his safety, to poke at the rock. Promptly seeing green electricity or something jump all over his skin seconds before getting rather painfully shocked. Phasing straight through his seat and the table, fully assuming his body did that just to get away from the contract with the rock. 

Danny grumbles incoherently as he gets back up, glaring at Tucker as he snickers at him. But the sound of him landing on the floor clearly drew everyone’s attention back to him, as his mom gives him a soft comforting smile, “you alright sweetie?”. 

Danny mutters, “yeah”, before glaring at the rock, “but that thing definitely hurts me”. Which earns frowns from everyone, while his dad picks up the rock and throws it into a capped container. It doesn’t take long for Tucker to start snickering again, which Danny glares at him for, though slightly amused himself, “Tuck, you’re the one who makes out with his PDA, that’s way worse than me not being able to touch a rock”. 

Danny can tell Tucker’s going to try to slug him in the shoulder so Danny decides to see if he can actually make himself intangible. Promptly smirking as Tucker goes right through him and falls on the floor, “HA!”. 

Jack can’t help but feel a little proud as he’s pretty sure his son didn’t do that little stunt on accident but he’s also a bit worried. There’s a lot of anti-ghost stuff in the house and he certainly doesn’t want his son to accidentally get hurt by any of it. 

Eventually, after Danny’s friends leave the two of them manage to shoo him off to bed. Looking at each other before Jack grabs the container, “obviously we’ve got to figure out if everything anti-ghost hurts him. What about shields? Would sensors pick up on him? I don’t know Mads, but our home is loaded with stuff that might hurt him now”. 

Maddie nods as the two get to work gathering up everything that might or should affect ghosts in any way. Putting anything made to hurt them, straight into the weapons vault. Maddie sighs, full well knowing they’re going to have to ask Danny to test this stuff. Which she feels downright bad about but they really do have to know just what affects him and what doesn’t. 

Looking up at Jack, “you think we could possibly isolate his ecto-signature? If he even has one? And use that to make all our stuff exclude him”. Jack nods a bit enthusiastically and snaps his fingers, “and if we make some modifications I’m certain we could even do that too the weapons. Though we definitely can’t leave any ectorainium laying around”. Both them nod officially deciding they have a new major safety rule in the house. No uncontained anti-ghost stuff unless it cannot harm or hinder their son. 

Danny does feel a little bad that his parents are probably freaking out about their stuff being dangerous to him. But he’s finding that hard to really care about when he keeps phasing through either his blankets or his bed entirely. Electing to just sleep on the damn floor after the fifth time falling through the bed. Muttering at the ceiling, “I kind of hate this. Sure powers are kind of cool I guess but not when you can’t god damn control them”. And he doesn’t even want to think about if someone other than his family or friends saw this crap. He’s positive his friends are only okay with it because they’re weird and his parents are, well, his parents. 

Putting his hand over his chest, partly wanting to will away the vibrating fullness but also feeling oddly comforted by it. Thinking on it, he could feel there was power there, making him shiver a bit at how he kind of really doesn’t want that to go away. 

A little curious, because it was his so he’s allowed to be, he mentally pokes at it a bit. Feeling kind of like he can tug at it, but there’s a bit of resistance or something. Jerking and bolting upright as he seemingly gets it past whatever and feeling it pour out. Snapping his head down and scurrying to stand up as a cold white ring of light shoots out from his torso. Not even getting a chance to poke at it as it splits, one half going up and the other down, his body. 

Instantly he starts flailing his arms because, holy crap, he’s floating again. Jerking his head around and spotting his feet, which are somehow back in white jumpsuit boots and they’re glowing. Yanking his hands in front of his face and yup, also glowing and white gloves. He attempts at swimming motions, running and just straight up willing himself to move towards the mirror in his room. Groaning as he just winds up spinning in a circle. “Well goddamnit, I’m-”, Danny cuts himself off at the sound of his voice. Touching his throat, “woah”. He’ll admit the echoing sounded really cool actually, ironically haunting but cool.

Getting startled as he feels his back touch the floor faintly and spinning himself around, placing his hands on the floor, “alright, ok, I can work with this”. Gripping at the carpeting and using that to pull himself along, the rest of him still floating in the air. Letting go and slowly righting himself once he’s in view of the mirror, and oh yeah definitely ghost again. He’s offically certain half-ghost is more accurate than human with ghost powers. Muttering at the mirror while he spins slightly, “so what? Shapeshifting? To different bodies or forms or whatever? That I can just switch between?”. Shaking his head a bit because this is ridiculous but then laughing at his reflection, watching as his hair lazily floats or waves about. Shaking his head around as his hair can’t seem to decide between being completely unaffected by the motion and waving about like he’s underwater. Snickering, “even my hair doesn’t know what to make of this bullshit”. Glaring at the mirror a little as he promptly becomes invisible, “oh so what? I mock you and you run away?”. Sticking his tongue out and knowing there’s zero chance of him sleeping like this. Grabbing at random stuff to pull himself through the air, occasionally floating higher or lower, trying to get a feel for this. But eventually, he does wind up falling asleep, back against the ceiling. 

Maddie’s not sure what to make of the little yelp she hears from Danny when she knocks on his door, “you ok?”. Maddie’s also not sure she believes his, “yup”, as he sounds clearly startled and a bit off. 

She’s then flat out startled herself, as she puts down his cereal bowl and turns around, seeing a pair of white-gloved hands holding onto the wall, with white hair and glowing toxic green eyes peeking around; at least a solid seven feet off the ground. “Uh mornin, obviously things have happened”, Maddie nods as she closes her mouth. Pointing at his cereal before composing herself, because she’d really rather not freak him out, well, more than he likely already is. Clearing her throat, “do you, um, need help? And are you ok?”. She’ll admit his look is startling and his voice is pretty strange. But it’s still clearly her boy, though she’s starting to think half-ghost is indeed more accurate. Though she’s got no clue how he’s transformed again. 

“I’ve been like this pretty well all night, so I’m ok. I think I activated it or something somehow. More or less figured out how to drive this floating thing, little awkward though”, even if he looks rather sure of himself Maddie still stands close by as he jerkily floats over. Grabbing his chair and pretty well pushing himself into it. It’s really obvious he’s using the table ledge to hold himself in place. 

Jack blinks and jumps a little, caught off guard by his son being all ghost again, “woah, alright, not a one-time thing”. Watching as his son tilts his white-haired head back, “yeah, don’t ask me how though. The best I’ve got is that I can feel the power or whatever in the core thing and tug on it”. Danny waves his hands over himself, “then this”. 

Jack taps his chin a bit as he sits down, his son clearly watching him as he eats his cereal. The intense glowing green eyes makes his staring a little bit unnerving but they do accent his hair nicely and it is definitely very ghost. Tilting his head a bit as he takes in his son’s clothing, “I’m going to assume the jumpsuit just appeared on you when you changed? And maybe if you tugged this out, you could yank it back in maybe?”. 

Danny can’t help but snort a little at the double maybe, plus he kind of already tried that. Well ok, he sort of tried that while figuring out the floating thing. But he knew he could change back, his mom startling him nearly made him faceplant into his carpet this morning. But it was kind of like he’d just changed back on reflex to avoid the impact. Nodding at his dad and responding after he swallows, “yeah, two bright rings of, I guess, energy and this just sort of appeared on me after they passed over. And maybe, was a little busy trying not to just float all over the place”. This lack of control thing is starting to go from startling and a bit scary to just annoying and embarrassing. He’s sure he looked straight up silly spinning around and bumping into shit. 

Danny watches his parents share a knowing look and he’s just hoping it’s something good. “Those sound like the same rings that passed over you when you changed back human before”, Danny nods, as he remembers the cold feeling from them before. He’s not quite sure why his mom looks a little guilty, “do you think you’d be up to letting us check you out again? See if anything’s different when you’re like this?”. Ah now that makes sense, he’s kind of glad they still feel a bit awkward and cautious about testing on him and stuff. But yeah it does make sense to check, “yeah, it’s alright. But it’s just the same stuff, right? Heartbeat, chest scan thing, and blood or ectoplasm or whatever, samples?”. 

Smiling at them as they nod, while his mom goes to grab the stethoscope. Danny’s not really sure what the hell to think if he doesn’t have a heartbeat while like this, and how would that even work? Hearts don’t just turn on and off. 

Finishing off the last of his cereal and having to hold onto the table to keep from floating up, while his mom listens to his chest again. 

Maddie’s more than a little glad to hear his heartbeat, it’s still way too slow but that’s probably just his normal now. Pulse is the same, “well all the same, which I’d say is good”. The chest scan is also the same, and the blood/ectoplasm samples seem the same, excluding that his ectoplasm is actually glowing this time, until Maddie looks at it under the microscope. Blinking as she watches the basically opposite of what happened yesterday. Now his ectoplasm is coating over and hiding his blood, once again without harming it at all. It’s literally flipped and eventually, the whole sample is green and glowing. 

Sitting up and holding up the slide, while Danny’s floating over Jack’s shoulder and she’s pretty sure Danny’s holding on purely so he won’t float around. Danny tilts his head, “ok? So what, does my ghost hide under my human but I can change to make my human hide under my ghost? That is beyond weird”.

Jack can’t help but agree that it’s very strange, it’s like his son’s a coin; all Danny but one side's human and the other ghost. Which really, this all just eliminates him being only a little bit ghost, “I’d say so son, and those light rings must be like a switch. Flipping what half’s on top”. Danny nods and fiddles with his fingers a bit, “yeah, that’s pretty well what I’ve decided too. Two halves, so half human half ghost. Which is still completely weird”. Jack knew his son had pretty much already decided he wasn’t just a little bit ghost but it’s so hard to believe, obviously his son’s not finding it quite as unbelievable. Even if it’s rather impossible and absurd, he’s glad his son seems a lot better about all this. Whether that’s because of having answers or just getting a little used to it, doesn’t really matter to Jack. Hearing his son laugh a little and realising it’s actually cause he’s gone invisible again, but he pops back into visibility after a couple of seconds, “oh and it seems it’s a lot easier to use and control the powers like this”. Matching his son’s faint loose smile with a large one of his own, “I guess that would be expected. You’ve probably got more access to anything ghost like this. And in the same vein have more accesses to human stuff while human”. 

Danny’s pretty sure he agrees with his dad, he’s not even sure if he can float while human. Though it’s still very odd to think the phrase “while human”, “more than likely yeah, now just got to learn control”. Both his parents pat him on the shoulder, even if both of them have to lift their arms up to do so. 

All three tilt their heads to the stairs as a knock is heard. Danny decides to stay hidden in the lab doorway, not really knowing who’s here and it’s not really worth getting spotted. A floating glowing teen is bound to startle the neighbours and start some new rumours. But Danny smirks as he hears Tucker’s voice, “the resident spooky superpowered teen up yet?”. Chuckling to himself a bit before forcing the invisibility and smiling down at his hand, with only a clear outline around it. Quickly floating next to Tucker as he’s got no clue who long he can maintain this, whispering “boo” in his ear and promptly losing his invisibility from laughing, as Tucker jumps a solid foot off the ground. Floating to hover just above the ground, curled up and laughing while Tucker shouts, “HOLY SHIT DUDE!”. 

Jack’s actually a little impressed with himself that he didn’t jump from his son’s stunt himself and he’s straight up pleased his son has figured out enough control to actually pull that off. Maddie was pretty clearly caught off guard though, yelping, “Danny! Oh my god”, before laughing herself. While Sam bends down and pokes at Danny’s hair, “wow Danny, built in alter ego much”. This gets Tucker’s attention enough for him to go from glaring at Danny to looking excited, “dude, secret identity. No super-suit needed, you’ve already got that covered”. 

Maddie will admit, her son having what’s essentially an automatic hazmat jumpsuit would make him a lot safer if he does have to deal with anything ghostly. It was pretty clear that his own ectoplasm was safe for him but who knows if other ectoplasm was as well. Both her son’s friends gape excitedly as he floats back upright and blinks open his eyes, “Tuck, did you just develop a recent obsession with superheroes or something?”. 

Jack’s actually a bit glad that both Sam and Tucker seem to not be bothered by the unnatural toxic green eyes, Jack can’t even tell what one seems to find them more impressive as Sam speaks, “Oh wow, that is sick and very cybergoth”. Tucker quickly joins in, “man this just keeps getting cooler, do they work as flashlights?”. 

Danny can’t help but start laughing again, because of course, Tucker would ask something completely unexpected. But at the same time, he was totally right. Nodding a little before being caught off guard by feeling that cold energy come out of him again. Quickly making a point to actually pay attention to how it feels this time so he can maybe figure out how this transforming thing works. He's not too surprised his dad was pretty right, feeling the power and energy being pulled or yanked back inside; before he promptly falls on his ass. 

Glaring at his two friends as they both bend over laughing, Sam pointing at him, “that is really freaking bright Danny. Not to mention cold”. Rolling his eyes, “you don’t say, not unpleasant though”. Somehow he doubts his friends care about that really, well they do just not enough to really be worried about him feeling cold. Patting off his PJs as he stands up, “so pretty well positive on the half-ghost thing and I have two bodies now, I guess”. 

Danny just stares at Tucker as he holds up his hand for a high five, “hurray for weird!”.

Maddie can’t help but laugh a little, she’s starting to think Danny’s friends are more that just a little bit odd, which might be good for him. Make Danny feel more normal and it’s pretty easy for weird to handle weird, “I’m pretty sure it’s more like one body but two states”. 

Jack smiles at his son and his two friends, “but all Danny and I’m sure you’ll make this work for you. We aren’t a family of geniuses for nothing!”.


End file.
